Amsvartnir sighed, rolling his neck and stretching out his body as he shook off the sleepiness. Alright, this wasn't going to be so bad, he thought. It had been a hot minute since he'd been able to convince himself to go out like this again... After last time, he just... Bleh.
But he felt good. Groovy, even, he thought to himself with a little chuckle, twirling his cane with him as he patrolled. "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal," he sang under his breath as he twirled it.
Hm. That was a Chaos aura... not one of the sucking vacuums that the Negaverse ones felt like, though. One of the haunting ones of the Dark Mirror. Hm! Maybe he could make another friend. The Dark Mirror seemed pretty chill, after all, so, perking up, he hurried to the aura, a half smile already on his face.
amorremanet
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:36 pm
The worst thing, bar none, about the White Moon was how many of them had hero complexes with neither manners nor a sense of basic boundaries. One moment, you’d be minding your business perfectly well as your current mirrorwraith collected energy for you, sticking to a safe, inconspicuous place so no one could bother you.
(Tonight, Lete had taken up residence on a bench in one of the gardens in Palisades Park, sitting there out in the open, yes, but with a book for class tomorrow—Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed—open in buns hands and hopefully, enough “go away, leave me alone, do not ******** with me” vibes to deter anyone from bothering her.)
……And the next moment, you’d be tensing up, as Lete did now, like an agitated cat, ready to hiss out a warning if the obnoxiously bright aura coming her way did not back. the ********. off. For a brief, glimmering moment, she hoped that the little White Moon interloper with their more powerful aura would pick up her Vibes on aura-sense and kindly ******** off back to whatever hole they’d crawled out of……but alas, no dice. They just got closer and closer until Lete looked up and found herself face-to-face with some pastel rainbow-decked out weirdo, whose cane looked like it had come straight outta Game of Thrones, like the dire-wolf of House Stark.
“I’m not doing anything nefarious, Sailor Whoever-You-Are,” Lete said flatly, and it was technically true. She had sent a Mirrorwraith out recently, but it had already come back and she’d held off on sending out another one until she finished this section of the reading. Once she got the homework done, she could drain somebody else.
Amsvartnir paused. Right. Of course. Oh, she seemed super pissed. His grin turned apologetic, and he gave her a sweeping bow, feeling every inch the dramatic theater kid he'd never been (not at school, anyway).
"Apologies! But, uh, I'm not a Senshi," he said cheerfully as he righted himself. "I'm a Knight. Well, Squire, but you know."
He shrugged, leaning on his cane so it hopefully seemed less threatening than when he had it loosely in his hand like the weapon it really was. "Amsvartnir, at your service, I'm one of Murikabushi's friends? He's on your team."
Yeah, okay, hanging out in her presence was probably not good for him, not when she looked like she wanted to murder him, but he wanted to at least try to explain himself before he went to walk away.
amorremanet
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:07 pm
In most other situations, Lete would have appreciated the dramatics and the flair. As a fellow theater kid, she couldn’t entirely help smiling at his sweeping bow (though she hoped very much that it looked more like a smirk and maybe scared him into tucking his jacket’s tails between his legs and running along, back to someone who wanted to deal with him).
And yet, the pastel rainbow knight remained. Talking at her like he expected her to have any idea what he was talking about. “Who the Hell is Murikabushi,” she drawled. “Really, your friend must not be very important, ‘cause I’ve never heard of him before.”
Not that she expected Tantalus to have told her everything about the Court while taking her to the Black Mirror, not when there’d been other things to focus on. But he’d gone over some of the big names—Remarque, the Mirror Prince; Lesath, his wife (whose name Lete had initially mispronounced as Lestat, oops); Leto, the Mirror Princess; Persephone, her wife; Damocles, who was Tantalus’s own husband; Tantalus’s sister, Sappho—and Lete definitely would’ve remembered some long-a**, distinctly non-Anglophone-misappropriated-Greek-or-misappropriated-German-sounding name like Murikabushi. So, whoever he was, he probably didn’t matter that much in the grand scheme of Court business, or at least he hadn’t made any kind of impression on the higher-ranking Dark Mirror senshi. Sad.
“Must be why he hangs around with goodie-goody, White Moon interlopers such as yourself, Ser Squire,” she said, trying very hard to sound like she Could Not Be Bothered as she tried to return to reading her book. “He’s unimpressive and hasn’t made an impression on our own Court, so he has to slum around with you to pretend like he matters to anybody.”
"....Wow," he says, giving her his best unimpressed look. "I'm surprised you haven't met him yet, he's pretty good with the newbies. There's no need to be so mean and rude about someone you haven't met yet! He matters to plenty of people!"
He scowled her her, thumping his cane on the ground. "And besides that, plenty of your fellow Dark Mirrors make friends with us White Moon. I'd bet every Mirror Senshi you've met so far could name at least one, if not two, White Moon friends."
amorremanet
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 10:22 pm
Now, the cane-thumping got Lete’s attention back from her book. Got her to stare at the weapon and wonder what, exactly, this little pastel rainbow knight could do with it. No matter that he wasn’t a senshi, he probably had something magical hidden up his incredibly poofy sleeves, and he could probably use it to wreak all kinds of havoc on her. And worse: he was more powerful than she was! Where did these White Moon weirdos get off, bullying people like this!
“Well, good for him, he’s sold out enough to be your friend,” Lete snarled. “Try telling that friendship song and dance to all the White Moon agents who attack me for just existing.”
Without hesitation, she lifted her hand. Her magic……had been a touch unreliable, so far? Not always working when she needed it? But nevertheless, she traced her fingers through the air, loosely following the curves of the knight’s face and snapping, “Sensory Decadence!”
Quote:
Sailor Scout Attack: Sensory Decadence. While calling their attack, Lete traces their hand through the air as if following the curve of a face. One enemy within a ten-foot radius feels something like a warm hand brushing down their cheeks, and then, the world around them seems to erupt in decadent sensation. For the duration of Lete’s attack, affected enemies are subjected to an onslaught of their five senses. Colors seem brighter, bolder, clearer, and more vivid. Their other senses are likewise overwhelmed: tastes are magnified by a power of ten, sounds feel as if the volume’s been turned up to ear-splitting levels, anything making contact with their skin feels heavy and oppressive, and nearby scents might as well be right inside their noses. Although this may initially feel pleasurable, such decadence soon begins to hurt. While distracting, this does no physical damage and enemies can still act, if they can stomach the overwhelm.
This attack lasts for 25 seconds, and Lete may use it three times per battle. Any lingering effects of the sensory overload after the attack ends are up to individual players!
Sold out? Sold out?!?! He took in a deep breath, getting ready to give her a piece of his mind, but then she cast her magic and he didn't have any time to react before his senses were assaulted.
Being stripped of what little sensory filter he did have made him collapse to his knees instantly, clapping his hands to the side of his head and shutting his eyes tightly. ********. This sucked. Oh, G-d, how he wanted to start tearing his clothes off, but to do that, he'd have to remove his hands from his ears, and he didn't really want to know if it would be worse having to listen to the magnified sound of crickets chirping and the occasional car, or to just be wearing his clothes.
"Haaanngh," he whimpered painfully, shivering. No, no, no...
He'd just wanted to be kind, for ******** sake!
amorremanet
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 10:47 pm
It probably didn’t do her any favors about looking Cool And Unbothered, but Lete sprang off the bench and squee’d when her magic actually worked like it was supposed to. And as she looked down at the Squire who’d thought so much of himself just a few moments previously, she had an idea. An awful idea.
A wonderful, awful idea.
Pulling out her mirrorshard, Lete called up another wraith. “Don’t worry, Wonder Boy,” she teased, “I don’t think this will hurt……very much. Mirrorwraiths are incorporeal, so at least it can’t bite you or anything like youma can.” The closest non-Chaos energy signature, the thing that signaled to Mirrorwraiths what they were or weren’t allowed to snack on, just so happened to be from the Squire.
And Lete’s current wraith got to work so very quickly, phasing in through the Knight’s chest and out his back to steal his energy.… Idly, Lete wondered if Mirrorspace could tell the difference between Knight energy and Civilian energy. She hoped so. That would mean she’d be giving it a treat by sending Wonder Boy’s energy back with this wraith.
Amsvartnir struggled to breathe as the mirrorwraith stole his energy. s**t s**t s**t. He whined as all of the feelings just. intensified, further, and didn't feel like it would stop anytime soon.
Until the deafening silence rung his ears and he slumped, exhausted from being tense for so long. Still his skin felt too sensitive now, and he desired to rip his clothes off even now... He wouldn't, but damn.
He just breathed for a moment. He could... get up... soon... yeah.
amorremanet
Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:05 am
Oh, Lete’s magic did not disappoint, and the mirrorwraith didn’t, either. Not that the mirrorwraiths ever disappointed—they truly, truly didn’t—but still, when she called it back, Lete made sure to give the little sweetie a warm, genuine “Thank you for all your help, and sorry to cut you short.”
She was sorry to cut the sweetie off too soon—but unfortunately, Lete didn’t know how long her magic would last. Once it wore off, the Squire could call on someone else for backup, or try to fight back, or something. And Lete didn’t want to hand him that kind of opportunity. Once the wraith had safely traveled back through the mirrorshard to Mirrorspace, Lete took off. Jogging might’ve been the WORST, second only to running, but bun high-tailed it out of there like a jackrabbit. The sooner bun put distance between themself and the Squire, the better.
